Chapter Text
Lance was seven the first time his mama told him about soulmates. He’d scrambled into the kitchen, rubbing his arm and claiming,
“Mama, something is wrong!” His mother turned to face him, flour up to her elbows,
“Lance, mijo, what’s the matter?” The Spanish was soothing and familiar enough to calm Lance down.
“My leg. It hurts really badly but I didn’t do anything to it.” Mrs McClain was silent for several long seconds before she wiped her hands on her apron and crouched downwards, so that the two of them were eye level.
“Pollito, that was your soulmate.” Lance blinked up in confusion and cocked his head, questioningly. Mrs McClain huffed a laugh and tried again.
“Did the pain start all at once?” Lance considered this question for a few seconds then shook his head.
“No, it was coming from someone else first.” After saying this his face screwed up, unhappy with his choice of words,
“I mean, it wasn’t my pain. I took it.” He stopped again, frustrated with his inability to explain the situation. Angry tears filled his eyes, only to be brushed away gently by his mama. She gave him a fond smile,
“It’s okay. I know it’s hard to explain, but that Lance, was your soulmate’s pain.”
Lance furrowed his brow,
“Soulmate? What’s that?” Mrs McClain smiled,
“It’s someone extremely important to you. Maybe more so than anyone else in the universe. Someone that understands you and your pain. You’re other half.” Lance beamed,
“Like you and Papa!” The laughter faded slightly from his mama’s face, replaced with a residual pain.
“No Lance, although we loved each other very much, we weren’t soulmates. It doesn’t always work like that. You know Luciana?”
“Abuelita Luciana?”
“Yes. I’ve known her since I was your age and she’s my soulmate.” Lance pondered this new piece of information.
“Do you love her?”
“Yes, I love her very much.”
“So you can feel her pain too?”
“Yes, and I can also take it away.” Lance’s eyes widened in wonder.
“So they would never get hurt and never get upset?” Mrs McClain affirmed this and a look of determination settled itself on Lance’s young face.
“Then I’m going to do that!” He stuck his arms our wide and flashed a grin, spinning on the spot and favouring his uninjured leg.
“I‘m going to take away my soulmate’s pain so they never have to feel it.” Mrs McClain’s head snapped towards her son.
“You will do no such thing!” Lance set his jaw stubbornly,
“Yes I will and it’s my soulmate so you can’t tell me what to do.” Mrs McClain swelled in anger and opened her mouth to retort.-
Looking back, Lance couldn’t remember the exact words she'd said to him. Nor could he remember what he'd said back to her. He was seven. It was understandable. It didn’t really matter anyway, as the arguments following that day were just repeats and remixes of what had been established back then. Yet, regardless of what was said or promised, from that moment on, Lance took every injury his soulmate gained, from the tiniest papercut to things that got him into a lot more trouble.
The wounds began small. Just the typical scrapes and bruises expected from a young child. In fact, it was so typical that Lance’s mama didn't even realise at first. His extra injuries flew under her radar as she faced the more pressing concerns of Maria’s grades and Alejandro’s football practice and whether she would ever be able to tell the twins apart. As a result, it wasn’t until Lance was fourteen that she even remembered the argument they had had regarding his soulmate.
Lance, on the other hand, had not forgotten. Ever since that day, every time he felt the echo of his soulmate’s pain, he pulled it onto himself and suffered the consequences. It was a strange feeling, knowing that someone else was in pain. Like watching the waves from beneath the ocean’s surface. It was like he knew his soulmate was in pain but until he brought it onto himself he had no clue as to how much. This led to some dangerous experimentation, as it was only through trial and error that Lance began to be able to predict the amount of pain he was taking on. On a surface level, it didn’t matter. He took it regardless. Yet it worked to his advantage if he was able to prepare himself for whatever level of suffering he was about to endure.
After a year or so he became pretty good at reading it. It was kind of like a phantom pain. Pushing down on his body but causing no harm until he pulled it out of the spirit realm. Clinging to him like spider silk, wrapping its way around his body and just waiting for him to reel it in.
The taking of these small-scale injuries peaked around the same time Lance’s family moved from their hometown in Cuba, to America. Lance and his siblings had protested the move but his mama had been adamant. She’d been given a promotion by the company she worked for and therefore supplied both a raise and a new house, so that she could work in its main office. Now, Lance was incredibly proud of her but Cuba was his home. This was where his house and friends and Varadero beach was. There wouldn’t be anything like that in America. But the promotion was a necessity and so it was at the age of eight and with a very loose grasp of the English language that Lance joined a new school in America.
The first few weeks were hell. Then the weeks following, worse still. His English was underdeveloped and he was the only foreign (read: coloured) kid in his school. This happened through a series of unlucky circumstances. His two youngest siblings were still in their nursery school, stay at home years and out of his older siblings, two were already starting college and one (Sofía, that fucking nerd) had received a scholarship to a nearby private school. This left Lance as the sole McClain joining Munising Public school. Whoo.
Lance thought it started off badly, when the other kids ignored him but mocked his accent behind his back. However, if he’d known then that that would be the high point of his school life, Lance might’ve attempted swimming back to Cuba.
If he was to pinpoint the moment when his life went from ‘Using a dildo without lube’ to ‘Getting dry fisted by Wreck-it-Ralph’ he would have had to trace it back to halfway through a math class in third grade. He’d been having a great time, really. Triangles were fucking intense. Or at least they might have been if Lance gave a shit. The only lesson he really payed attention to was English. For obvious reasons. As this wasn’t English, Lance wasn’t too annoyed when he felt the all too familiar tingling of his soulmates pain. He was cautious though. It felt different from any time before. He could tell this injury was big. But,Lance was eight and reckless and had never really looked after his body that well to begin with. So, heedlessly, he took it.
The pain was immense.
Never in all his eight years had Lance felt so much pain. It burned across his leg like fire as his leg twisted up at an unnatural angle. At first, his classmates had laughed. The funny Cuban boy at the back was making strange noises. Yet when they got a good look at his leg, the laughter died out, to be replaced with utter horror. Lance had to be carried out by his teacher, still screaming, and taken to the hospital to have his leg reset. His cast was a pretty purple colour.
After that, not even the kinder students, who would sometimes offer their company at break, would acknowledge him positively. Instead, he was teased for his stupidity in helping his soulmate.
“Why would you do that?” Sneered the leader of the boys, tall and freckled. “Your soulmate doesn’t even want you!” Lance ignored him and every other person who spoke to him about his soulmate. They didn’t know anything about his bond and had no right to speak about it. None of this was his soulmate’s fault and even if no one else cared about him, his soulmate would.
This mindless optimism was crushed at the age of twelve. His class had reached the age where they were to be given the mandatory soulmate discussions. The man spoke of safety and communication and other ways of maintaining a healthy soulmate bond, which all went right over Lance’s head as his mind swirled with the information he’d received just twenty minutes prior.
A classmate, Sarah, had asked him a question during homeroom. That alone was surprising for Lance. He wasn’t usually spoken to directly, unless the teacher forced them into group work, just gossiped about behind his back. So when pretty Sarah Miller, with her gapped teeth and wavy blonde hair, said she wanted to ask him a question, any suspicions that Lance might have had vanished.
“Sorry if this is personal but I don’t have a soulmate and I’ve always wondered, what does it feel like when they take away your pain?” Lance didn’t care if she’d wanted to know his bra size, he was available and desperate for friendship.
“That’s fine, it’s not personal at all. You’re not missing out on anything either as you can’t feel it.” Maybe if he’d payed more attention he’d have seen Sarah and her friends throwing him glances and whispering together beforehand. He might have heard the chatter dominating the classroom and how it had somehow turned to him. He definitely should have noticed how the whole class appeared to hold their breath as Sarah began their conversation. Unfortunately for Lance, he saw none of these things, so as he eagerly answered her question in the hopes of winning her friendship, it was an unwelcome surprise when most of his classmates began to laugh. Another girl spoke above the giggling,
“Yes, you can. It feels really good. Like, the pain dulls out and you get this nice warm feeling.” Lance frowned at her, eyebrows knitting together,
“I’ve never felt that,” A boy three desks away laughs,
“Your soulmate’s never taken your pain away?!” Lance said nothing, staring down at his desk, so the boy continued,
“Seriously? You’ve never had an injury go away for no reason?” Lance was dazed, the world he’d thought he’d known was being ripped away but he muttered quietly,
“No, I’ve never-” He was interrupted by raucous howling.
“Are you serious?”
“That’s so lame!”
“Not even his soulmate wants him.”
“It's kind of sad.”
Lance spent the rest of the day in another world, unaware of his surroundings. He then spent the rest of the night on the family computer, researching anything and everything he could find about ‘soulmates’. He wasn’t entirely sure why he’d never done it before, unless it was the fact that his soulmate was something private to him and even looking on the internet felt too public. That and having the internet was a relatively new thing. His mama had always worked with a laptop that Lance had been forbidden to touch so having such easy access to the ‘world wide web’ was like a portal to another universe. Yet it had been a portal Lance was uninterested in, until this moment in time. Now it was vital in his quest for knowledge.
Armed with new information, barely two weeks later and Lance was easily able to explain everything away. This person didn’t know him and why would you want to take pain away from a complete stranger? They weren’t doing anything abnormal and if they knew Lance it would be a whole different story. Lance was sure of it.
With that reasoning, Lance continued with what he was doing for the next two years, still painfully aware that every bruise, bump, and scratch he received stayed upon his skin until it healed. Which was fine. If his soulmate knew him, they’d act differently. They’d want to protect Lance.
Lance wanted to protect them too. It was hard, though. Incredibly hard. He knew his soulmate was being bullied - you just didn’t get that many injuries by yourself - but there was nothing he could do about it. Not like he was in a better position anyway. Despite joining high school, not much had changed. Within his first week, it had got out that Lance McClain had a soulmate that had never taken his pain away from him. Lance could have suffered the humiliation but there were always assholes that wanted to test this statement. Nothing terrible, just a few small injuries that, as always, remained unhealed. Salt in his wounds. This kind of bullying could be seen as a blessing or a curse considering his soulmate was suffering through the same thing. At least no one was going to question a couple extra bruises. With this in mind it wasn’t uncommon for Lance to take away all kinds of injuries throughout the day, but at half past seven, sitting on his bed and watching a thin cut travel up his bicep, Lance was instantly on guard.
This was a reflexive reaction, stemmed from a period of three to four weeks the previous year, when his soulmate had been purposefully hurting themselves. Back then, Lance had never felt more helpless in his life. The only thing he could do was keep taking the injuries away, caught in the knowledge that there was nothing he could do to ease whatever emotional pain his soulmate was going through. Thankfully that time hadn’t lasted long, and since then they haven't tried anything like it since. There were still several thin white scars across Lance’s thighs, mostly healed by scar removal cream but if you knew what you were looking for, still visible. These only served as a reminder of how little Lance could help his soulmate, so as soon as he had felt the half-familiar sting of a blade, Lance had dropped his English language book and sat up straight in his bed, shaking.
When the cut stopped growing, Lance stood to find something to stem the sluggish bleeding, only to drop back down at the feel of another slice. Lance whined in pain, this one was deeper than the previous. Longer too. A faint metallic taste filled his mouth that he recognised as blood. He was terrified. Was his soulmate doing this to themselves, or had someone attacked them? He wasn’t sure which scenario was worse.
For the next half hour, Lance lay curled up and whimpering on his bed as phantom blades buried their way into his skin. Each slice varied in length and depth but the pain was nothing in comparison to the fear Lance felt for his soulmate. He had no clue what they were going through. Whether they would be safe. Whether someone could help them. He refused to think of his final worry, Whether they might die. What would even happen to him if his soulmate died? Would Lance die with him? Could he die in their stead? Would they just leave Lance all alone?
Both books and the internet were embarrassingly vague with these types of questions. It seemed to vary from person to person. Some soulmate bonds were so strong that if one of them died so did the other, instantly. In others, there were cases where a person was brought back from death because their soulmate took the burden upon themselves. Lance knew that to save his soulmate he would do anything, but he really didn’t want to die. He wasn’t ready.
A dull kick to his gut brought him out of his hysteria, and with that, it all seemed to be over. He was winded, but slowly brought his legs up to his body and cried. He cried somewhat out of relief, but mostly for his soulmate. He cried for what they’d been through and how they’d suffered. He cried because he couldn’t be there for them and he cried because, realistically, he didn’t know if he ever could be.
Then he stopped.
There was a buzzing in his arm. Lower down than before, across his left forearm, the tingling that told him his soulmate was in pain. He pulled it away from them and onto himself.
It was worse than the ones before. The cuts were deeper. They burned as they entered his skin and lasted far longer than any of the ones before had, minutes upon minutes, as slow, deliberate cuts wound there way up his flesh. He was so focused on the pain of it, that it wasn’t until it was finally over and he had begun wiping the blood from his wounds that he saw them for what they were. Letters. Cruel and purposeful, and spelling the words, ‘I HATE YOU’.
Then there came a harsher pain, from his right arm. Lance watched in shock as a thick gash sliced it's way up the main artery in his arm. Blood gushed out at an alarming speed and for a second Lance was frozen in panic. Until, shaking himself out of his stupor, he staggered up from his bed and made his way downstairs as quickly as he could, putting pressure on his arm in a desperate attempt to stem the flow of blood.
He found his mama in the kitchen, hands wrapped around a massive orange cooking pot, but the cooking was soon forgotten as she looked up and saw Lance. He was an absolute mess, panicked sobs mixing with nonsensical babble as he attempted to communicate the situation. English and Spanish awkwardly mixed together as his fear grew,
“Oh my god, ave maria. They tried to kill me. No quiero morir. Voy a morir. Aren’t I Madre? I’m sorry. Lo muy siento. Help me please!” He swayed on his feet, dizzy from the blood loss.
His mama lept into action at once, abandoning dinner and driving Lance to the hospital at a speed that was nowhere near legal. For the next few hours, Lance remained unconscious, as he was administered an emergency blood transfusion and his arms were stitched up and bandaged. He didn’t wake up until the following day and that was a whole other shitstorm.
Two weeks.
That’s how long they made him stay in that hospital.
Two. Fucking. Weeks.
Apparently, when you’re brought in with your arms sliced open, a Class 3 hemorrhage and missing two pints of blood, doctors aren’t anxious to let you leave. 'Why,' you ask? They thought it was self-inflicted. It didn’t matter how many people Lance told; sympathetic nurses, women with clipboards, heck even the janitor, none believed him. It was incredibly frustrating.
Yet, to his surprise, his mama accepted his account at once without demanding further proof. When he questioned that she heaved a sigh and told him,
“Pollito, you’ve been putting yourself on the line for your soulmate for as long as I can remember. Your mama knows better than anyone how much of a boneheaded idiot you are.” Lance gave a mock offended snort as his mama’s eyes lost their humor and she stared at him with a mix of protective instinct and rage.
“Do not think you are getting let off easy at all. That was stupid and dangerous and it nearly cost you your life! I’ve turned a blind eye for years, knowing how stubborn you are, but I will not tolerate this any longer. You are not to take away any more of your soulmate’s pain. They do not deserve it. That is not a healthy relationship. You might think what you’re doing is sweet, or romantic but it’s just driving them further away from you. This-” she jabbed fiercely at his bandaged arms, “This is where that thinking has brought you. Your soulmate will not appreciate you removing that from them without their consent. You ever heard of ‘survivors guilt’?” Lance shook his head, desperately hoping that wasn’t a rhetorical question. His mama rolled her eyes,
“Then pick up a book and look it up. Don’t do that to your soulmate. They deserve better than that.” Lance nodded, speechless, but after a look at his face, his mama lost whatever was left of her anger and engulfed him in a hug. The physical contact was enough to break the dam of emotions inside of him, and with that, he began furiously sobbing on her shoulder. They remained that way for the rest of the night, Lance clutching on to that feeling of safety and protection as he seriously considered what she had said to him.
She was right. He at least knew that. What he was doing wasn’t healthy, for either of them, but he didn’t know what else to do. His soulmate was all he had at this point. Them and his mama. The age gaps between him and his siblings were too large and he was long past attempting to make friends at school. If he didn’t have his soulmate, he had nothing. And, if he didn’t keep taking his soulmate’s pain, who’s to say they wouldn’t forget about him too? If he stopped taking the pain then the bond between them would be lost and Lance would really have no hope of ever finding them. What was he meant to do?
The next morning he spoke to a man in a blue suit. He was a soulmate advisor and spoke to Lance in great detail about the dangers of taking an unknown soulmate’s pain. Lance didn’t listen to a word he said. Nothing the man could say would resonate more than his mama’s words last night. He switched on a little when the man talked about soulmate laws. Those two words had always been a sort of paradox. How can you oversee something that comes from the connection of two people's souls? Fact is, you can’t. The government had spent years desperately trying to dictate soulmates but it was impossible to create a law that would work for every type of bond.
You see, soulmate bonds had a very nasty setup that could easily result in unhealthy, abusive relationships but there was no way to regulate them and therefore no way to control them. The best the government could do was stop outsider influence. Therefore the soulmate laws were put in place, ensuring that whatever happened between two soulmates was a completely private affair and no one but them had any right to dictate how they co-habilitated with one another. It kind of worked. Lance couldn’t think of a better idea so he had no right to criticise it. Anyway, all that meant was Mr Striped Tie could preach to him for as long as he wanted but at the end of the day, he had no say in how Lance chose to act with his soulmate. So, when he returned from his two-week stay in hospital, no one had any right to tell Lance not to take every injury his soulmate had accumulated that fortnight. Nor could they talk about how Lance cried himself to sleep that night, but that’s only because he didn’t let anyone see.
One month from then and Lance should have been ecstatic. He’d gotten into the Garrison! All those hours of studying and self-hatred finally paid off. He might even get to meet Shirogane Takashi. That might be a little weird though, what with having had posters of the man’s face across his walls for the past seven years. In fact, he'd been the reason Lance was so interested in space to begin with.
It was kind of sad really. Maybe six months after Lance had first moved to America, he’d walked into a computing store instead of the taking the road back home. Some kid had drawn on his pencil case and he just hadn’t been ready to go back home and lie about what a great day he’d had at school. Instead, he’d wandered the aisles, watching the promo videos play across the monitors. It wasn’t as relaxing as he might have hoped. Just serving to remind him of how little he understood the English language. He picked up words here and there but most of it was an incoherent jumble of unfamiliar sounds and phrases. Overwhelming.
“Space.” Lance turned his head to the screen on his left showing a young, good-looking man. He recognised that word. ‘Espacio’,
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”, ‘Es hermoso ¿verdad?' The man smiled,
“My name is Shirogane Takashi and-”, ‘Mi nombre es Shirogane Takashi y-’ Lance didn’t understand the words that followed but he focussed on the passion and excitement colouring the man’s voice and found himself drawn to it. His distress forgotten, Lance bounded home, tracked down the commercial and then proceeded to spend half an hour translating it word for word. Holding the completed result gave him an incredible feeling and after pinning the scrap paper to the wall above his bed, Lance doubled the efforts he was putting into learning English as well as spending any free time researching both space and The Garrison, the place where Shirogane worked as a pilot. Lance wanted to follow in this man’s footsteps, and if he had to go into space to do so, so be it.
Knowing all of this, and clutching his Garrison acceptance letter, Lance should have been bouncing off the walls.
But he wasn’t.
Because he hadn’t felt anything from his soulmate in a week.
Lance was worried. When two weeks had passed, Lanc was pretty distressed and by week three Lance was nothing short of terrified. That was why, in the dead of night Lance phoned a soulmate advisor company, looking for help. His prayers were answered by a woman called Carol who listened to his fretful babbles about how he thought his soulmate might have died because he hadn’t felt anything in weeks and how his soulmate was a fucking disaster so there was no way they had managed to just not injure themselves for three whole weeks!! Immediately Carol assured him that there was no way his soulmate had died without his knowledge. The passing of a soulmate was equivalent to having a piece of your heart ripped out (hence the name) and was never something that happened subtlety. Soulmate deaths had been know to wake coma patients because of their strength so there was almost definitely no way Lance had accidentally slept through the partial removal of his soul. On the other hand, a complete radio silence from a soulmate was practically unheard of. she'd suggested they might be in a coma and asked if Lance had been having inexplicable bouts of fatigue. She'd listed off more symptoms and Lance had vetoed the idea.
Finally, after a long period of nothing but paper rustling, Carol suggested his soulmate had used a restrictor. This prompted the question, what’s a restrictor? Carol quickly explained that their existence was because of a small government-led project to create a device that prevented people with high-risk jobs from being a burden on their soulmate. For instance, a surgeon doesn’t want to accidentally take on a broken wrist halfway through an incision.
However, those devices were brand-spanking new and were nowhere near hitting the mainstream market for at least another decade. Therefore, Lance’s soulmate was either loaded or had excellent connections. This information meant nothing to Lance. His soulmate had chosen to cut him off. He knew they didn’t like him. The scars across his arms and legs were proof enough of that. But he’d never thought they could be so callous. To just discard him, like an old doll they’d never been that fond of. He moved away from those thoughts, this wasn’t necessarily permanent. He had no idea what his soulmate did. Anything could happen.
Yet deep down, Lance knew they weren’t coming back.
After that, no matter what he did, Lance never felt anything from his soulmate.
It was hard to move on. No, worse than hard. Like one day someone ripped off your arms and from then on, all that anyone asked you to do was lift things. The Garrison was a welcome distraction. On his first day he met a guy called Hunk and Lance vowed to protect him with his life. He was the whole package; good-humored, excellent cook, gorgeous. He was also the main rebuilder of Lance’s confidence. Until they’d disappeared, Lance had never really considered just how much of his life he’d built up around his soulmate. He had pinned all of his romantic ideals onto this person he’d created in his head and when they hadn’t been everything he’d expected, he’d felt lost.
During the next two years, Lance properly came to terms with his misplaced feelings regarding his soulmate. The relationship the two of them had was not healthy and that was mainly his fault. Lance had to accept that. After he came to that conclusion, however, Lance felt freer than he had in years. Letting go of his soulmate opened up a whole new world and, boy was Lance ready for some of that. Girls were adorable. Guys were fucking gorgeous. Lance was both, everyone’s a winner! Realistically Lance knew the flirting was meaningless. Sure it was fun to see how smoothly he could drop a line but he was really only doing it because he could. All his life, any romantic dream he had was centered around his soulmate until even the very idea of love was a far-off fantasy. Only now, for the first time ever, Lance was allowed to date anyone and he was gladly abusing that privilege.
Hunk was confused if not supportive. Lance wanted to explain his promiscuous nature but to be honest, he really wasn’t ready to talk about any of it. That’s not to say he didn’t love being himself now. He was more outgoing, more friendly. He and Hunk were a dream team of mischief and the Garrison was everything he could have hoped for. Except for Iverson. That dude was a class A prick. Fuck Iverson.
That was another thing his new found independence gave him. Hatred. Nah, maybe that was a bit strong. Then Lance thought about the words forever carved into his skin, about the injuries he’d had to hide from everyone around him for years, the fact that never once had he felt the supposedly pleasant feeling of a soulmate protecting you.
Lance hated his soulmate.
About two months into his first year Lance took the exam to get into Pilot class. Unfortunately, about two months in, during his pilot exam Lance was ill. Lance was so fucking ill. His head ached, his throat itched and his nose felt like Hoover Dam. Also, all the stupid English words were floating off the page. He would have cursed if he wasn’t in an exam hall. His English was near perfect at this point. Most of the time no one even heard his accent and it had been years since someone had asked where he came from, because he sounded so native. Thanks Shiro. Not now though, apparently. Not during possibly the most important exam he would ever take in his life. No sir. Error 401, File Not Found, please contact service area of Fuck You.
Staring blankly at the empty box he was meant to write in, Lance remembered an incident from his elementary school. Man, that was a long time ago. Wonder what happened to Nibbles the class hamster. It was only his second - maybe third - week of school and back when the teacher was still bothering to try and coerce the rest of Lance’s classmates to play with him. Of course, Lance understood bugger all so she might as well have not bothered. Still, when she pleadingly asked a rather overweight blonde to play a game with him, he had listened attentively in hopes of understanding some of what she said.
“No!” Spat the child in response, eyes narrowing at Lance, “I don’t want to play any games with him!” Lance, in all his childish naivety, stared back, thinking furiously in hopes of translating the words. He was fairly sure he understood a few of them so maybe he could work on that.
“¿dijiste playa?” The confused look on the other boy’s face quickly shifted to anger,
“Speak English, stupid!”
Lance felt pretty stupid now. The words in front of him were growing and shrinking alarmingly. Just keep writing. He couldn’t mess this up just because of some stupid head cold. Just finish the fucking test. Get into the pilot class and maybe receive a high five from Shirogane. Easy peasy.
Two points.
Two points.
Two points.
That was the difference in scores between Lance and the lowest scorer in the pilot class. He had managed to pick up enough points during his flight test to make up for his abysmally low score on his written paper. It wasn’t enough, though. He had so close and he knew he could have done better. It was infuriating. And disappointing. Why would a cargo pilot ever get to meet Shirogane Takashi?
A month later it didn’t matter what class Lance was. There was no way he would ever meet Shirogane. The Kerberos mission had failed.
Luck was a two-faced bitch however because not a week after that, Lance was bumped up to pilot class. Some guy named Keith dropped out. He was meant to be the best in the Garrison. Lance wasn’t complaining though. He didn't care what cosmic force caused Keith to pack his bags but he was grateful nonetheless.
During the next year, that opinion changed. It seemed every time he messed up, there’d be at least three people reminding him that Keith would never do something like that. Keith was the best pilot the Garrison had seen since Shiro. Keith single-handedly stopped world hunger, saved the ice caps and found a cure for cancer! Apparently, every teacher in the Garrison thought it was useful to continuously remind him that the only reason he was in pilot class was 'cause Keith had Alan Parrished on everyone’s ass.
One Saturday night Lance had got extremely drunk and researched everything he could on the guy. Why was he so special anyway? Lousy fucker. I mean suuure, of fucking course he was incredibly good looking to top it off. That’s fair, but there really weren’t many reasons as to why everyone was singing his praises. He had a mullet for god’s sake! Who even had those anymore? Did he lose a dare? Was he visually impaired? Had he pissed off his hairdresser?
Sober Lance was horrendously embarrassed to discover that drunk Lance had written a four hundred word backstory on the reasons behind Keith’s hairdresser’s intense and burning hatred towards him. It wasn’t even well written.
Never minding that, the truth was, Lance didn’t like the guy. That mullety asshole.
So why was it, on a humid summer night where Lance was perfectly happy to chat to Pidge and Hunk about cryptids till the sun rose, did the mullet that haunted his dreams reappear with a vengeance? In another situation, Lance would have been capable of putting great thought and detail into his answer. Present Lance was given no such luxury and was instead shoved mercilessly through emotional and physical turmoil. If someone were to take a look at his internal monologue during the next couple of hours, it would have gone something like this:
Hey, there’s Keith. HoLy fUcK It’S sHiRo! And a massive blue lion, cool beans. Now they’re in space - was Lance dreaming? This felt like something he’d dream up - Okay alien spaceship that’s - oh we shot it, that’s cool too. Now they’re on an alien planet - still not sure how much of this is real - and they’re just walking into it, nice, that’s probably totally safe. Creepy alien house. Creepy alien house. I’m not a celebrity, get me the fuck out. Ooh, hot space babe in his arms, play it cool. Nope she said my ears were hideous and judo flipped me, that's like minus third base. Also, it really hurt - that kind of debunks the whole dream theory, shit. Space babe has a friend. Wait, update, her name is not space babe, it’s Allura. That’s an awesome name. Five stars. And Mr Mustachio over there is called Coran. Once again, excellent name, very alien.
The aliens, sorry Alteans, gave the group of humans some much-needed exposition and then promptly dumped the news that, ‘Hey, unqualified teenagers, from now on you’re going to fly SPACE ROBOT CATS! Isn’t that rad?! Also, the fate of the universe rests upon you not fucking up - good luck!’ To be honest that was a bit of a bummer but the team took it in their stride. Kinda.
The first couple of weeks were crazy. They beat up bad guys. Came together as a group. Found out Pidge was a girl. Honestly, that kind of sucked for Lance. It wasn’t that Lance thought she was a boy, it was that for the last year he hadn’t been entirely sure of her gender. Some people called her a boy, some a girl. It was confusing and scary and after about six months Lance was too afraid to ask.
They also found out more about the war they were fighting in. Lance felt really bad for Allura and Coran, also slightly scared and very impressed. His emotions were frankly a bit of a mess. But to wake up, get told you took a ten-thousand-year-old catnap, that your friends, family, planet and everything you knew had been destroyed and then JUST SOLDIER ON! Lance respected the hell out of that.
Lance also, maybe, kind of, forgave Mr Mullet. Sure it was easy to hate him when he’d been at the Garrison and repeatedly told how worthless he was compared to Keith. But now they were stuck on a spaceship together and Lance could see that he wasn’t ‘trying to be a bad boy’. Keith was just awkward. Didn’t mean Lance stopped making fun of him. He was a petty bitch after all. Just meant the tone was teasing rather than spiteful. Cleared the air, you know. Better vibes.
So yeah, everything was a bit new and frightening, but they were managing it without any severe consequences for the most part.
Then Allura got a papercut and everything went to shit.
Well, maybe not a papercut. Altean paper. It was really weird. Like, you touched it and it sort of wobbled, like jelly. But solid-er. Also no pens! You just spoke to the space paper and it scribed it for you. Pretty neat. Shiro hated them calling it space paper. That was entirely Lance and Pidge’s fault. After about four days they unanimously decided to call everything space ____. No particular reason. Just thought it was funny. After two weeks, every time the word ‘space’ left one of their mouths, Shiro’s eye twitched. Lance was fairly sure they were halfway to causing the man a nervous breakdown. Cool.
Speaking of Shiro, he was awesome!! Whoever said ‘never meet your heroes’ was an idiot. Sure, Lance was a lil dazzled at first. This was the guy whose face had loomed off his wall for nearly a decade. After he got over his starstruck-ness though, Shiro was great! That was sort of what made it so sad. Knowing Shiro was just a kid like the rest of them. Knowing that, despite that, he’d gone through so much. You could tell. How sometimes he’d get that look in his eye. It’d happened a couple of times. Him getting flashbacks. Those were never good for anyone.
And, despite that, he was healing. He spent a lot of time meditating and Lance knew it was really paying off. His skin had a healthier glow and he would eat more at mealtimes. Lance was quite impressed by that alone. Seriously, whose idea was it to have goo?! That aside, Shiro was getting better. Lance always tried to crack a couple jokes around the guy. Sure, he groaned and pretended he didn’t appreciate Lance’s incredible wit and comic timing, but it always brought a fond smile to his face and didn’t that just make Lance feel all warm and gooey inside?
Wait, where was he? Ah yes, space paper. Considering the response, the whole thing was pretty anticlimactic, except the second the cut sliced her finger, Shiro snapped his head around so quickly Lance thought he’d get whiplash. Then there was a pregnant pause, as half the room’s occupants looked in concern at Shiro and the other half stared at the creamy blue drop of blood oozing from Allura’s hand. Then Shiro dropped his gaze and closed his eyes, concentrating, until Allura broke the silence with a surprised gasp.
“It’s gone!” Coran walked over in concern,
“What do you mean?”
“The cut on my finger vanished! What does that mean?” Allura asked worriedly.
“It means,” Shiro began, uncertainty, “That you’re my soulmate.” If anything, Allura looked more confused and whilst Shiro rushed to explain, his thoughts came out awkwardly and did little to help her bewilderment.
“Sorry to spring that on you, Allura. It’s an Earthen thing. At least I think it is. I haven’t seen many other planets. But on Earth, most people have something called a soulmate. Um, it’s not necessarily romantic but a lot of people perceive it that way. I never thought I had one - why would I? I never felt anything - but I guess it makes sense. You were in cryosleep, so of course you wouldn’t have any injuries, and that’s why I felt so tired all the time. I thought I was just odd. Or lazy. But this makes sense. It’s ridiculous, but it makes sense.” He straightened up to look at Allura. She gave him a look that Lance dubbed ‘I'm pissed off and if you don’t cooperate in the next five seconds, it’s going to get a whole lot worse’ Lance hated that look. He was pretty sure Shiro hated it too, if his flinch was anything to go by.
“How so?” Ooh, that was frosty. Shiro seemed unsure how to explain, opening and closing his mouth several times. Lance had never seen the man look so uncertain. Finally, he choked out,
“I’m sorry, could I speak to you in private about this? I’m not sure how, but I think you may have gotten mixed up in a part of Earthen culture.” Allura nodded her consent, intrigued by this admission and the two left the room.
They didn’t return that evening and after a lot of innuendos, courtesy of Lance and Pidge, the paladins began making their way back to their rooms.
After all of that, Lance was expecting a lie in, late breakfast and team bonding, not the sound of an emergency alarm that screamed like it’d been stabbed. The alarm brought in mixed responses. There was Shiro and Keith, in full battle armor, naturally. Hunk, dazed and confused but resolutely clutching his bayard and finally, Pidge and Lance, still in pajamas with hair braided wildly from the previous night's sleepover. To tell you the truth, Lance kind of thought they deserved the chewing out they were bound to get. He could admit when he was in the wrong.
Yet, Allura was smiling and Shiro was blushing. Excuse him, let Lancey Lance repeat that, Shirogane Takashi, crew member of the Kerberos mission, pilot of the black lion, head of Voltron, was red-faced and googly-eyed. It was weird. Like seeing your teacher on a date. Lance shuddered at the mental image of Iverson getting it on. He did not need that sort of negativity in his life right now.
“Paladins,” Allura began, snapping him back to attention, “If you hadn't gathered from last night, I wish to tell you that Shiro and I are soulmates.” Almost unanimously the rest of the team began making noises of mock surprise. Shiro gave them a look. Allura went on,
“This is unexpected to say the least and although I have been informed that on Earth this is more of a private thing, I believe, as your leaders, we should set a good example and make sure that we do not unintentionally place you all in a difficult situation.
Shiro and I have decided that, with the war as it is, we shall not take away life-threatening injuries from one another. That sort of guilt and lack of control is not something that would work well within the team. Illnesses are another issue. If we encounter something where one species is better equipped with dealing with it than the other, depending on the situation we will discuss pros and cons and come to a reasonable conclusion. I am telling you all this so, if the time comes, we will not catch you off guard and worry you unnecessarily. Is this alright with all of you?”
The paladins nodded their agreement and Hunk stood up,
“My mum always told me that your soulmate is something that is private to you and therefore, no one else would ever have the right to impose on that.” Lance looked at Hunk’s earnestness and felt incredibly touched,
“Well said buddy.” Allura smiled in a relieved sort of way.
“With that out of the way, this brings me to the second point I wanted to talk to you about, this quintet. After learning in detail about soulmates last night I believe that it will be a useful bonding exercise for you all to speak about your soulmates. This will also be practical information for Coran’s medical endeavors, as we would prefer not to have too many unknown variables if one of you is injured. We will be using the training room floor so I expect to see you all there and suited up in the next five dobooshes.”
Lance blanched,
“I’m not sure-” Pidge elbowed him harshly,
“Sounds good princess, see ya in five!” Then with one arm on Hunk and the other on Lance, she frogmarched them out the room.
“Ouch Pidge, what the hell?” She gave him a flat look,
“This is a time-consuming exercise that doesn’t require my blood, sweat, and tears. Do not take this away from me!” Her eyes glittered dangerously. Lance nodded mutely.
“No prob, Bob.”
Seeing as no one else seemed uncomfortable in revealing incredibly private information amongst people they’d just met, it wasn’t long before they were all sitting cross-legged on the training room floor. No one seemed too anxious to be the first to speak. After several long seconds of silence, Pidge rolled her eyes, exasperated,
“Guess I’ll start then. Not that there’s much to say. I don’t have a soulmate. I’m not particularly bothered about it, I’ve just never felt that connection - you know?” She stopped, stealing a glance at Shiro and Allura,
“Although, if Shiro’s anything to go on, my options are still open apparently.” Shiro smiled at her,
“Thanks Pidge. Hunk, would you mind going next?” Hunk shook his head. He took a couple of seconds to begin and during that time his eyes slightly glazed over and a small smile made its way onto his face. In that moment Lance had never wanted to protect anything more in his life. That boy was precious.
“Um, I do have a soulmate but I’ve never met them. Well, we’ve never spoken or anything either so it’s not like I know them very well but we have a sort of system. So, if one of us has a small to medium injury the other will take it from them but if it’s larger than that we leave it. I’m not sure what their opinion is about it, but I’m sort of glad because I’m not sure if I could handle it if I really badly injured myself and then the pain disappeared and I knew my soulmate had it.” He shuddered, looking upset at the mere thought.
“So, yeah, I think for now, what we’ve got is good. I’d love to meet them properly though.” The last words were mumbled, like a private admission. Hunk fidgeted with his hands when he’d finished, smile not leaving his features.
Pidge laughed, not unkindly,
“Smooth moves, Hunk. I always knew you were a romantic!” Shiro nodded,
“I’m proud of that, Hunk. That’s a very mature conclusion for the two of you to come to.” He turned his head to Lance,
“Go on then Lance, I know you’ve been dying to speak.”
Shiro was wrong. In any other circumstance that would have been incredibly reassuring and comforting. The guy wasn’t perfect. He made mistakes like anyone else. Good to know. This, however, was the wrong time, Shiro was wrong and Lance was suFFeriNG.
No. he told himself. Just don’t make a big deal about it, they’re good people, they’ll understand. He gave a small nervous laugh,
“Nah, not really Shiro, not much to talk about.” Shiro looked like a kicked puppy, eyes wide and remorseful,
“Oh, I’m sorry Lance I didn’t know-” Lance cut him off, what kind of cruel man would let that continue?
“No it’s not that-” This time Pidge spoke out,
“So you do have a soulmate?” Lance winced.
“No, sort of, I don’t know. I just really don’t want to talk about them thanks.”
Lance knew he could have just said he didn’t have a soulmate and be done with it, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. No matter what they had done, or how badly they’d hurt him, he couldn’t just deny their existence. That would be like spitting on the romantic ideals he’d carried for the two of them since he was young. He couldn’t erase them from his life like that. It wasn’t right.
The team seemed to respect his privacy, Shiro apologetic and Pidge, still curious, but subdued. As usual, however, Keith didn’t pick up the memo on ‘how to correctly interpret human emotion’ and blundered in like a blindfolded Gibbon.
“Since when have you not wanted to talk about yourself?” His tone was incredulous, like the idea of Lance being anything other than a self-absorbed idiot was impossible to comprehend. That little bitch. Lance felt his temper rising.
“Since this was not any of your business. Talk about your soulmate, mullet!” A conflicted sort of look crossed Keith’s face until he replaced it with a smug half smile,
“I don’t have a soulmate.”
There was a definite pleased note to Keith’s voice and the whole thing was just so typically Keith that Lance wanted to scream. Of course that little emo would be happy to be denied the one thing Lance wanted more than anything else. He gave a bitter laugh,
“Of course you’d be happy about that.” Keith’s eyebrows knitted together,
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lance laughed again, frustration and long-held pain leaking into his voice,
“What, lone wolf Keith? The top pilot of the Garrison. Talented. Gorgeous. Bet you can’t think of anything worse than something as pathetic as a soulmate dragging you down. I’m sure you love being above it all!”
“Lance, what the fuck?” This time Pidge spoke, looking almost afraid of Lance,
“We don’t care if you have a soulmate or not, but that was out of line!” Lance felt his voice shake as he tried to explain to the team,
“I do have a soulmate. I-I mean I used to anyway.” He dropped his head slightly, not wanting to look at their faces. He looked back up at the sound of Hunks sniff in time to see his best friend in the universe crying. He’d never seen Hunk look so upset, it was heartbreaking.
“I’m so sorry Lance. You never talked about your soulmate at the Garrison and at first I thought it was just because you were a private person but then I knew you for about a week, so of course it couldn’t have been that! And after that, for some reason, soulmates just never seemed to come up when we were talking and if anyone else mentioned it, you just avoided the topic and I just kind of figured you didn’t have one. Because I knew you and if you did have a soulmate you would have spent every waking hour of the day boasting about them. Except you didn’t, so I just assumed and I’m so sorry for not noticing I’m the worst friend ever!” Lance’s lip quivered and all of a sudden he tacked Hunk in a bear hug, unable to listen to any more of what he was saying.
“Hunk, there’s no way you’re a terrible friend. I just didn’t want to talk about them. That’s not your fault. Look, if I ever find them I’ll introduce you two.” At these last words, a different kind of atmosphere blanketed the room.
“What do you mean Lance, you said your soulmate was dead.” Pidge sounded apprehensive. Lance shook his head at her words.
“No, they’re not dead. It’s just. My soulmate hates me.” Whatever reaction Lance was expecting, this was not it. It was like the whole room relaxed at that. Hunk’s grip around him fell away and Pidge let out a derisive snort.
“Seriously, you were just being dramatic?” Lance whipped his head round to face her,
“WHat?” Pidge rolled her eyes at him, all previous concern wiped away,
“Lance, your soulmate can’t hate you, it’s impossible.” Lance moved back towards Hunk and miserably began rattling off all the instances he could remember of soulmates hating one another. That had been a wild Tuesday night last year. Hunk wrapped his arm tighter around Lance and added,
“Dude, how could someone hate you? Least of all your soulmate.” Lance pulled his face out of Hunk’s chest to look at him in disbelief. Shiro stepped forward,
“Lance, Hunk’s right.” He gave Lance a fond smile, “Are you sure you’re not just being dramatic?”
Lance was unable to react for a few seconds, body shaking in betrayal. Then he pulled away completely from Hunk and stepped closer to Shiro, voice trembling with emotion,
“When I was fourteen my soulmate tried to kill me.” Then he left the room, no one making any attempt to try and stop him.